Big Pharma still betting on “messed up” Indian drugs market

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Global drugmakers have had a nauseous time in India’s $14 billion market. Prices have dropped and valuable patents have been overruled as the authorities strive to make medicines affordable for the 70 percent of people living on less than $2 a day.

From a regulatory perspective, the government has “messed up”, as one top industry consultant put it. But with 1.2 billion people increasingly seeking both on- and off-prescription drugs, the market is too big for firms to simply throw in the towel.

The two top foreign players, Abbott Laboratories and GlaxoSmithKline Plc, are actually stepping up investment, and others such as AstraZeneca Plc are considering doing so.